this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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A New York judge sentenced a woman who pleaded guilty to fatally shoving an 87-year-old Broadway singing coach onto a Manhattan sidewalk to six months more in prison than the eight years that had been previously reached in a plea deal.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago (7 children)

What's actually being punished? Would she have been sentenced to 8.5 years in prison if she pushed an 87 year old who was slightly less frail and instead of dying sustained major injuries? Would she have been sentenced if she pushed an extraordinarily healthy 87 year old who knew how to gracefully fall and sustained no serious injuries?

It seems that the act of pushing alone isn't enough to sentence a person to nearly a decade in prison. There was likely no intention to kill, though that was the outcome. What if she sneezed on the 87 year old, and in a fit of panic the 87 year old fell over and died? Again, no intention to kill, though that would still be the outcome.

I think it's clear this should be punished more intensely than sneezing, pushing an old person would very commonly result in serious injury, so this is definitely assault.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 2 years ago (3 children)

For cases where injury was sustained there is legal doctrine know as the Eggshell skull rule

The rule states that, in a tort case, the unexpected frailty of the injured person is not a valid defense to the seriousness of any injury caused to them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

What an odd rule! Thank you for the explanation.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 years ago

I think the idea is the actual damages aren't going to go down just because the person was frail. Someone with prexisting medical problems aren't going to need less physical therapy compared to someone who is average.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

This wasn't a tort case.

This is a simple case of assault in which someone unintentionally died. It's textbook manslaughter.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 years ago

Again, no intention to kill, though that would still be the outcome

No it wouldn't, you have to prove intention to kill for a murder charge. This is manslaughter, a lesser but still very serious charge. Killing someone on accident is still a crime, shocker, I know.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago

pushing an old person would very commonly result in serious injury.

This is why she's being punished. You cannot assault an 87 year old without expecting serious injury or death. Just like you can grab a 20 year old and shake them by the shoulders and they'll be fine, but if you do the same to an infant they're probably going to die.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago

This is the problem of moral luck. We often want to punish people more because factors outside of the perpetrator's control turned out badly. Either we should punish everybody harshly when they push an elderly person, whether or not it injures them, or someone like this should get a pretty light sentence. Yet we have an irrational pull to treat the cases differently.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So you're saying that you don't understand what manslaughter is. You ask a lot of questions, but I get the feeling that you're not the type of person that is actually looking for answers

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

you're saying that you don't understand what manslaughter is

No, they’re just saying that instead of manslaughter being a more severe charge than assault, maybe it should be lessened to be equivalent. Similarly, maybe attempted murder should carry a charge equivalent to actual murder.

[–] Curiousaur 4 points 2 years ago

Muder is murder. Manslaughter is manslaughter. Intention, knowledge, negligence, does not matter for manslaughter, unless the intention was to kill, which upgrades it to muder instead.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Sneezing on someone? No crime.

Pushing someone? Crime.

This is why you're not a lawyer and should never have any say in legal proceedings.

Stay in your lemmy fantasy world with the rest of the mentally ill.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

You don't have to be a dick about it Bob.